The nightmarish Biden/Harris ticket is the teachers union’s “dream team.” “You don’t just have a partner in the White House, you’ll have an NEA member in the White House.” Referring to his wife Jill, presidential hopeful Joe Biden uttered those words at the virtual National Education Association convention in early July. He also expressed dissatisfaction...

Wiki Commons The second-largest public school district in the United States is in turmoil. Los Angeles Unified School District, with over 600,000 students in kindergarten through twelfth grade at over 1,000 schools, may not be open for the business of teaching on August 18. How to handle the COVID-19 pandemic is the issue, and there is...

Better pay and working conditions for teachers can be achieved, if only the unions would get out of the way. We live in striking times. In 2018 there were state-wide teacher work stoppages in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, et al. And this year, we have seen strikes in Denver, Los Angeles and Chicago. Not surprisingly,...

A blockbuster report exposes myths about the teaching profession, but will it matter? People love stories, and the gooier and more heart-rending the better. Few are more likely to send readers running for a box of tissues than the tale of a dedicated, but woefully underpaid teacher who is forced to take a second job,...

The latest PDK poll is useless, as are most. The latest yearly poll from Phi Delta Kappa, an organization whose mission is to “activate educators and other stakeholders to elevate the discourse around teaching and learning….” has just been released, and I don’t see any elevation. In fact, the poll is ultimately meaningless, although that didn’t...

Kamala Harris has concocted a brazen plan to get the teacher union endorsement in 2020.  In July, 2015, a full year before the last Democratic National Convention, the American Federation of Teachers endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. This infuriated many teachers, who preferred Bernie Sanders, rightfully feeling they had no role in the decision. AFT...

The “state crisis” threatened by Los Angeles teacher union boss two years ago is upon us. In two recent posts, I detailed the United Teachers of Los Angeles contract demands on the school district and reported that a strike was likely. And of late, the situation has gone from bad to dire. Perhaps the biggest...

  In light of strikes past and future, a brief review of teacher compensation is in order. A recent headline in the Austin American-Statesman caught my eye. It read, “Texas education chief suggests paying higher-performing teachers more.” Those of you whose first reaction is “Well, duh,” are hardly outliers. But in the land of...

Using loads of bogus info, LA teacher union leader prepares teachers for a walkout in the fall. In my post last Tuesday, I wrote about the many problems facing the Los Angeles Unified School District. Since then, one of the issues I detailed has moved front and center: the strong possibility of a teacher strike....

The United Teachers of Los Angeles claims its members “don’t get no respect.”  The late comedian Rodney Dangerfield often used self-deprecating humor in his routines, and his catchphrase, “I don’t get no respect!” is legendary. And now the United Teachers of Los Angeles is channeling the great comic, as thousands of teachers took to the...